


long past living

by cowboylakay



Category: Red Dead Redemption (Video Games)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Established Relationship, High Honor Arthur Morgan, M/M, Miraculous Survival, Recovery, Spoilers, a lot of vagueness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-16
Updated: 2020-08-16
Packaged: 2021-03-05 23:06:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,598
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25933354
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cowboylakay/pseuds/cowboylakay
Summary: Arthur Morgan might have died that day on that mountain. He's not sure.
Relationships: Arthur Morgan/Charles Smith
Comments: 7
Kudos: 82





	long past living

To his dismay, Arthur wakes up.

He blearily blinks his eyes open, groaning quietly to himself as he tries to breathe properly. It’s like dirt had been wedged through his windpipe, blocking any sort of clean or clear air from entering his lungs. His heart beat in his chest like a cougar chasing prey, fear and pain crashing through him in a raging tempest. Fever-like sweat clings to his skin and drips down his forehead, feeling hotter than the sun yet colder than snow all at once. There’s pain everywhere as he tries to wake up more, most felt in his sides, his chest, and his head.

Gone were the days that he could wake up without feeling like the world was closing in on him and crushing him like an ant under a boot, when he could breathe in and out without so much as a tickle in his throat. As if to mock himself, he coughs hard, a severe itch in his throat as he beats on his chest and desperately wishes for water, whiskey, moonshine, hell, _anything_ to soothe his throat.

And as if by magic, or some kind of divine providence, a tin mug is pushed to his mouth.

He barely gets over the surprise before he’s drinking clean water, tasting slightly of tin, a gentle hand cupping his jaw to tilt it up. He realises that he knows these hands ( _for Christ’s sake, Morgan, wake_ up) and knows this gentleness too.

“Drink, I’ve got you,” Charles’ disembodied voice says, and good lord, he must _really_ be out of it now. He keeps drinking anyways, savouring the imagined feeling of that kind, calloused palm under the scruff of his beard.

What happened to him slowly and feverishly comes back to him. He’s dead, surely, because Micah beat the shit out of him and left him to succumb to his wounds. He’d watched the sunrise and died that morning, slumped against a rock wall and breathing his pathetic last. He’d been killed by the fists of a traitor and the negligence of a father, and slowly began decomposing on a mountain, far from the west and far from any sort of place he could call home.

“I died,” Arthur wheezes out, sounding as pitiful as he felt. Like pushing a bagpipe with more holes in it than you could count, a small whistling din that was more noise than real words. The hand moves from his jaw to his cheek, tender and caring as a thumb moves across his cheekbone.

“No, you didn’t,” Charles says, and Arthur wishes he could see him, see that mouth move around the syllables, but he feels as blind as a bat and as lame as a log, so he fails not even halfway through. “You lived, and you’ll continue to live,” He continues, voice wavering slightly. Arthur wonders when hallucinations could get so real as to have emotions he’s never seen the real version express.

“Don’t think I will,” Arthur mutters, eyes heavy again as he struggles to stay awake. There’s a press of lips to his forehead, soft and supple in the way he remembers Charles’ lips to be. He misses him, he thinks, and hopes that he was able to help the Natives escape to the north. He also hopes that Charles never has to find his body, and that he’ll have been long picked apart by birds or coyotes or some other stupid creature before he does. Let his body be of some use to the world around him long after his passing, he thinks deliriously. Yeah, Charles might’ve appreciated that.

“You’ll be fine,” Charles’ voice tells him soothingly, but it sounds wrong, like he was assuring himself as much as Arthur. “Didn’t drag you all the way here just for you to...”

Charles trails off, and he feels the hand on his cheek begin to tremble slightly. Arthur desperately wishes he could open his eyes and see this real-not-real Charles, memorise the details of his face past what he already knew.

“You’ll be fine,” Charles repeats firmly, palm sliding against his scruffy cheek. Before Arthur could even think of a reply or consider how real that touch felt against his cheek, the world goes quiet, and he slips into a deep rest.

—

He dreams of nothing.

Everything and nothing, all at once. He dreams of the people he’s harmed, too many to name and too few still alive today. He dreams of his hands, covered in blood that was dripping from the dark, starless sky and bathing him in hot droplets. The droplets become waterfalls, soaking him down to his bare skin, clothes permanently stained in the blood of those he’s murdered.

He finds himself in a lake of blood, the waterfall pushing a harsh current through to fill it, perhaps to drown him, but he remains at the foot of it. A stag wanders closer to the lake, not paying him any mind as he drinks from the lake of blood. Arthur watches him drink, calmly lapping up the deep red as though it was water, and realises that he can _taste_ it, feel it run down his throat.

A lone wolf creeps up from the forest that suddenly materialises around the lake. It’s limping from an unseen injury, and eyeing the stag with a desperate hunger. The stag continues drinking, either unaware or uncaring of the predator in his midst. The wolf comes closer, and before Arthur can move, the stag turns to the wolf, bends his neck, and _charges._

—

“Arthur,” A voice calls, pulling him from sleep. It didn’t feel like sleep, because he feels just as tired as before he fell asleep, but he must’ve been out for some time. “Arthur, wake up.”

“What?” Arthur asks, slurring in his speech as he opens his eyes. The first thing he sees is a face, dark and wide and framed with black hair and the most beautiful eyes he swears he’s ever seen. Then, he realises that it was Charles. “Charles? Is- is that you?”

“Yes, Arthur, it’s me,” Charles says, lips moving around the words, eyes losing their shaken wideness. His hair has grown out a little, scalp no longer as evident from where it used to be shaved, but not as long as before the bank job. His face is otherwise the same, though a little more tired around the eyes than he remembers from before.

Arthur can feel tears pricking his eyes, a panicked relief settling into his bones as he extends a trembling hand to touch Charles’ cheek. “Y-you’re here?” He asks shakily, lip quivering as he looks up at Charles.

Charles smiles at him sadly, kissing his forehead and hugging him as gently as he can to his chest, covering Arthur with his wide frame. “I’m here.”

Arthur is quiet for a moment until he laughs a wheezing laugh, which ends in a dry, itching cough. When he catches his breath, shakily inhaling air, he chuckles a little more in disbelief. “Thought you left. Why the hell’d you come back?”

“That’s not even a question,” Charles tells him wetly, a smile evident in his tone, still holding him. Arthur hopes he never remembers to let go. “I never could stay away from you for too long.”

Arthur laughs again, a wheezing noise that sounds too pathetic to inspire more laughter. He tries to steady his shaky breathing, tears freely running down his cheeks and staining Charles’ dotted shirt. “You stubborn fool, Charles Smith.”

Charles pulls his head closer to his chest, fingers carded through Arthur’s hair. “I know, I know. I missed you too.” He breathes in against Arthur’s forehead, despite the drying sweat and clammy feeling of his skin. “You should eat. I tried feeding you the few times you were awake, if you can remember that, but...” He trails off, gesturing to a newly cleaned bucket to the side of the bed. Arthur winces, sighing heavily against Charles’ warm chest. “Couldn’t keep it down. You think you can handle eating now?”

At that exact moment, the state of Arthur’s stomach makes itself known, audibly groaning. Charles chuckles softly, letting go of Arthur to get up. If he notices the wet stains on his shirt, he doesn’t seem to care. He wipes his own cheeks of tears before smiling at Arthur, a soft smile on his face that Arthur wants to rediscover every part of. “I’ll be back. You stay here, alright?”

“Don’t think I can go anywhere without—“ Arthur coughs suddenly, racking through his chest like a thief through a rich man’s pocket. “Without makin’ a whole lotta noise. I ain’t goin’ nowhere.”

Charles’ smile mellows out, drooping slightly. He turns away then and disappears through the door frame, giving Arthur the time to survey his surroundings. It’s familiar to him, filled with various hunting memorabilia and stuffed animals, as well as fishing equipment and little trinkets. Not long after spotting a stuffed wolf head on the wall, he realises that this used to be Hamish’s home, from before it was abandoned on account of his passing. There are some items around the house that seem to be his and Charles’ things, like a quiver full of arrows and the bear claw belt buckle he always wore.

On the nightstand, he sees his cattleman revolver, as clean as the day he’d gotten it with an oiled rag right next to it. Beside the nightstand is a chair with a blanket draped over it. He guiltily wonders if Charles slept there while he was, for lack of a better saying, dead to the world.

Charles comes back in not too long after, carrying a bowl of some kind of stew. It looks similar to Pearson’s, though it smelled and looked much better than the brightly coloured mud that was the camp cook’s stew. “Sorry if it ain’t much. Never was good at making stew, but I figured you might take it better than dry meat or baked beans.”

He takes the bowl and sits up slightly, despite his sides screaming at him. Charles notices this and helps him sit up, careful not to jostle or exert him too much in the process. Not for the first time, Arthur feels like he owes it all to Charles. “Thanks,” He says, taking the proffered bowl and spoon, before beginning to eat. Despite looking similar to Pearson’s, it tastes nothing like it, on behalf of the taste and edible meat. His stomach complains, but he doesn’t feel nausea after the first few bites, so he figures that might be a good thing.

“So...” Charles begins, hesitance obvious in his tone. Arthur knows the question before he even asks, and slows down his eating to be able to respond. “I think I can guess what happened, but... what happened on that mountain?”

Arthur breathes in carefully, swallowing as he goes through his memories. It feels almost like the aftermath of that time he’d been kidnapped by Colm O’Driscoll; his mind was clouded, most parts of the fight unclear and a blur, only remembering the important moments. He remembers grappling Micah, getting overpowered, reaching for a gun, and Dutch arriving. He remembers Dutch’s face, the way he looked down at him with an expression that he only recognised from when Hosea passed, and the way he turned away from the boy he raised.

“... Maybe another time,” Charles says quietly, a steadying hand on Arthur’s knee. He sits down on the chair next to the bed, and Arthur remembers a question he wanted to ask.

“You been sleepin’ there?” He asks, eating another spoonful of the stew. It’s definitely kinder on his stomach than any other Pearson-made meal, and it tastes infinitely better.

Charles stretches a little in his chair, folding his hands on his stomach. “Mm, yeah. Most nights I do, other nights, I sleep outside.”

Arthur slows in his eating to flash him a guilty smile. “Lotta space in the bed. Could probably fit you in, enormous as you are.”

Charles regards him with a soft twinkle in his eyes. “Probably could, if we tried,” He says, smile widening just a little. Arthur didn’t realise how much he missed his smile until it had been too late, and there was nothing but the consumption left. “So long as you’re alright with it.”

“I been more than alright! I been—“ He cuts himself off, coughing into his fist as he turns away, his grip on his bowl tightening as he tries to get through the worst of the hacking. Charles reaches over and rubs his back, and while it doesn’t do much to stop his coughing, the familiar comfort is still welcomed. He clears his throat, thumping his chest twice with his fist. “I been— alright with that since the moment I met you. Ain’t stoppin’ now.”

“Since then, huh?” Charles asks with a worried smile, still rubbing his back soothingly. Maybe it did help a little, just feeling his touch on him. “That’s a lot of trust for someone you’d just met.”

“Maybe I just knew you’d be one of the good ones,” Arthur replies, voice scratchy. He leans back into Charles’ touch, trying to control his breathing to rein it back in, looking at Charles all the while. God, he really did miss him. He thinks back to how Charles had only been gone for less than a week before it all broke down, and how much he wished he was up north with him rather than following Dutch to his grave.

He suddenly remembers John — Christ, how could he forget? — and lowers his bowl, feeling his chest constricting as the worry settles in, curling around his throat just as hard as the consumption. “Did- did you see John? If he got out? I-I don’t...”

“Hey, hey,” Charles calls, gentle hand taking away the bowl from his hold. He carefully rubs the back of Arthur’s neck, damp with sweat and covered by his hair. “I didn’t see him anywhere around the mountain. I saw Old Boy and thought the worst but... I didn’t see him.” His hand moves from Arthur’s neck to his hair, gently pulling free some knotted strands. “Breathe, Arthur. Like how I’m breathing.”

Arthur’s eyes dart from place to place before landing on Charles. He watches his face, the deliberate slowness of his breathing, and focuses on that and the hand in his hair. A part of him feels downright pathetic for needing this kind of coddling, but a bigger part of him, right now, is thankful beyond words.

“I’m sure he’s alright, Arthur,” Charles tells him, without an ounce of dishonesty in his words. “John’s not that big of a fool. Kid knows what he’s doing, even if we don’t.”

“Ain’t that the truth,” Arthur mutters, having calmed down a little. He’s not sure what it is, but something about Charles soothes him; maybe it was his own calmness, or how attuned to Arthur’s emotions he seemed to be.

Charles kisses his cheek again, putting the bowl of stew on the chair next to the nightstand. “Try and get some more rest. I won’t be far if you need me,” He says, getting up from where he was seated on the bed. Arthur hums his understanding, feeling too exhausted to argue.

“Hey, Charles?” Arthur calls out just before Charles leaves, watching through drooping eyes as the man stops in his tracks. “I love you.”

Charles gapes at him for the better part of a second, before he smiles widely, eyes crinkling when he does. “I love you too.”

—

After a week and a half of bed rest, sitting, and doing next to nothing, Arthur finally snaps.

“You need any help there?” Arthur asks eagerly, watching from his seat on the porch as Charles chops firewood. His journal balances on his thigh, two pages worth of the man in front of him sketched in various poses into the clean paper. Charles stops and looks at him with a raised brow, hand placed on his hip.

“Help with chopping wood?” He questions with a small smile, holding the axe against his shoulder. “I think I’ve got that covered.”

“Y’know what I mean! Other... things!” Arthur exclaims, gesticulating broadly. The movement causes a stab of pain to go through his shoulder, to which he hides his wince, but Charles is nothing if not an eagle-eyed son of a bitch, so he notices anyways.

“Sure,” Charles says in that placating, unbelieving way of his, but he seems to relent regardless. He gestures over to the washtub Charles only recently repurposed for a trough for Taima. “How about you replace the water? I forgot to do it last night, and I don’t want to leave it like that for too long.”

Arthur doesn’t exactly know how dirty a trough can get after a few days, what with Taima being the only horse for miles around and a lake not a stone’s throw away from where she grazes, but it’s something to do, and he’s more bed than man nowadays, so he nods and gets up with only minor difficulty. He’s lost a lot of muscle and general mass to the consumption, and his lungs still aren’t quite right, but compared to how he was before and after Micah almost killed him, he’d say he’s in a better state now.

He grabs the bucket from the side of the cabin, gently patting Taima on the neck and smiling at her nickering, before moving on to the trough itself. Kneeling down in a way that doesn’t jostle the bandages around his middle, he tips it over to the side and lets the old water drain out into the dirt, before picking up the scrub and getting to work. It’s mindless work, something Arthur’s done multiple times before, when he was younger and dumber and the one in charge of taking care of the horses, when it had just been him, Hosea, and Dutch. He tries to ignore the sharp pain in his gut, of being reminded of Hosea’s passing, and even worse, of Dutch’s betrayal.

Because that was what it was, wasn’t it? A betrayal, from the man he thought he knew to be his father. He lost him in the later part of his life to— what, exactly? Power, greed, infamy, freedom? To Micah, he wants to say, but Dutch had been changing even before Micah ever came into their lives. He was a plague that infected Dutch with his dangerous plans and self-serving ideals, but Dutch had already been sick with something else.

He lost Hosea to Agent Milton and his Pinkertons over a month ago. He lost Dutch to himself longer ago than that.

He gets up to fill the bucket with water from the lake to rinse out the scrubbed trough. There’s no use thinking about the past anymore, about those they’d lost. Hosea is dead, buried far from the virgin forests of the west, and while Dutch isn’t, he’s as good as. So were Jenny, Davey, Mac, Sean, Lenny, Molly, and Grimshaw. Dead, and someday, forgotten. Those that escaped will live on, haunted by the ghost that was their time running with the motley crew of thieves and killers known as the Van Der Linde gang.

He looks up when he doesn’t hear wood being chopped anymore. Charles is bent over, picking up the wood and putting them into a sling to carry inside the house. A light sheen of sweat causes his hair to cling to his face, but what catches his attention is the soft, neutral expression on his face. Unworried, for the first time in a long while, and content. He notices Arthur and looks up, eyes locking onto his, and smiles brightly. Arthur finds himself smiling back, entranced.

He figures it’ll be alright. So long as he has Charles with him, he figures it might be okay.

—

It’s four weeks after Charles saves him when they finally move on.

They don’t have a lot of belongings to pack, so they make quick work of it. Charles leaves at some point in the morning for a quick errand and returns when the sun is overhead with a quiet draft horse, a dark bay mare that warms up to Arthur within seconds of meeting.

“Where’d you find her?” Arthur asks, feeding the mare some sticks of celery. She burrs at him appreciatively, knocking her head into his hand as if asking for more. Weak as he is for a pretty face, he feeds her another.

Charles watches him from where he’d been strapping Taima’s saddlebags. He smiles at Arthur. “Saw a wagon off the side of the road with only her strapped to it. Driver got shot, and the wagon was looted, but they left her there. Thought she might do us some good,” He says, before his eyes soften in the way that always makes Arthur feel a little weak in the knees like some fawning maiden. “I know you miss Samson. I thought she’d be a good temporary replacement.”

Arthur feels his eyes prickle slightly as he smiles at Charles. “Ever the caring one, ain’t you,” He says, looking back at the mare and patting her neck. “Thank you.”

They set off not long after, heading west to open country and greener pastures, far from civilisation and farther still from Dutch’s dreams of mango farms and dead sons. Despite it all, Arthur is content, because he can still breathe air into his lungs, but most of all, because he has Charles by his side.

**Author's Note:**

> i’m [lakay](https://cowboylakay.tumblr.com/) on tumblr


End file.
